Shanghai zoo 'too full' of abandoned exotic pets

The Shanghai zoo has complained that it has no more space for exotic animals abandoned by the city's pet-owners.

'People should think it over before buying such pets,' said Pei Enle, director of the Shanghai Wildlife Protection CenterPhoto: ALAMY

By Malcolm Moore in Shanghai

11:23AM BST 06 Sep 2010

Zookeepers said they now have a population of 80 red-eared turtles and that they were forced to build a new enclosure for the dozen estuarine crocodiles found last month.

"Almost all of them were abandoned somewhere in the city," said Wu Weichun, the director of the Chinese zoo's amphibian department, to the Shanghai Daily newspaper. "We now have to make sure by controlling the temperature that they do not reproduce," he added.

Other pets now crowding the zoo include green iguanas and a variety of snakes. The zoo said raising the abandoned iguanas was proving costly because of the expensive ultraviolet lights needed by the reptile and because of their healthy appetites.

"People should think it over before buying such pets," said Pei Enle, director of the Shanghai Wildlife Protection Center. "Otherwise it's unfair to the animals, and it might be harmful to the city's local ecology if they were set loose."